Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was implemented for the first time in 1992 and was limited in its use until 1997 when the NHS (Private Finance) Act was passed. Extensive use on large hospital projects followed, other variants of PFI include Private Partnerships (PPP), LIFT and Building Schools for the Future. There are currently around 127 healthcare-related PFI schemes in England, the number of LIFT projects built and managed under LIFT is not known.

If you are the Duty Holder or appointed responsible person, e.g. head teacher, business manager, maintenance manager or property owner, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that occupants of your premises are suitably protected from water safety risk. When dealing with water hygiene issues in schools frequent reviews and updates to your Legionella risk assessment are key to keeping water systems safe.

Authorising Engineer [Water] and the Water Safety Group : Confidence in the Authorising Engineer [AE] with their knowledge and experience can play a key part in successful water safety management. AE duties are defined in the Department of Health’s guidance Health Technical Memorandum 00 [HTM00]. The role can be summarised as an independent auditor and an assessor of competency & performance.

Before we can discuss the uses and benefits of an independent water safety audit, it’s important to understand what one is and what it entails. An independent water safety audit completed by an Authorising Engineer [Water] is not to be feared but to be welcomed as a measure to promote compliance within an organisation.

To best understand the ‘summer risk’ in relation to the incidence of Legionnaires’ disease, it’s useful to refer to the Legionella surveillance reports issued by Public Health England (PHE), which succinctly summarise the monthly position (total reported and total confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease) whilst offering year-on-year comparison data.

Hotel water systems may be large, complex or aging or a combination of all three and this can make them susceptible to colonisation by microorganisms including Legionella bacteria, the causative agent of Legionnaires’ disease.

There is a requirement for all building managers to ensure the safety of the public and employees so far as reasonably practicable. This requirement is set out in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, The Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health 2002, the HSE’s Approved Code of Practice: “Legionnaires’ disease, the control of legionella bacteria in water systems” L8 2013, the associated HSG274 Technical Guidance Part 2: “The control of legionella bacteria in hot and cold water systems” 2014 and the Department of Health’s HTM 04-01 “Safe Water in Healthcare Premises” Parts A, B and C, 2016.

The Water Hygiene Centre was established in 2009 to address the lack of independent consultancy within the industry. Since then we have established ourselves as a market leader and have steadily grown, helping clients identify and minimise the risk of waterborne contamination and disease, whilst improving compliance performance.